Geographical Locations of Major Short- and Long-Haul Destinations for UK Tourists

Unit 3: Travel destinations

AO1: A locational description with maps of different scales, of your 2 chosen destinations (15 marks)

Mark Band 1 You produce a brief locational description with basic 0 – 5 marks maps, at either international or national/ local scales, which identify the 2 chosen tourist destinations; you demonstrate basic knowledge, skills and understanding but there are significant omissions Mark Band 2 You produce an accurate locational description, with 6 – 10 marks maps, at international and national (and/or local) scales, which clearly identify the 2 chosen destinations. You demonstrate sound knowledge, skills and understanding with few omissions. Mark Band 3 You produce a comprehensive detailed locational 11 – 15 marks description and series of maps at international, national and local scales for the 2 chosen destinations. You demonstrate thorough knowledge, skills and understanding with no significant omissions.

Geographical Locations of Major Short- and Long-Haul Destinations for UK Tourists Through the use of various types of research, you need to build up a knowledge and understanding of the geographical location of the major short- and long-haul destinations for UK tourists. Whilst continental Europe and North Africa (short-haul destinations) have a wide variety of travel and tourist destinations, the popularity of more distant holiday destinations (long-haul destinations) with visitors from the UK has increased in recent years. Short-haul destinations are defined as those within a four hour flight from the UK: • Continental Europe, including Eastern Europe, and the UK; • Mediterranean islands; • countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea (including Turkey, Lebanon, Israel and Northern Africa); • the Canary Islands and Madeira; • Iceland.

Long-haul destinations include those in excess of four hours: • the Americas and the Caribbean; • Central and Southern Africa; • the Middle East; • the Far East; • Australasia. You need to choose two specific destinations (rather than countries or regions) and find the locations of them (one short-haul and one long-haul) in the areas listed above and produce maps which show their geographical locations effectively.

Key features that you need to include for each destination

1. A comprehensive detailed description about your destination. This should include:

Describe the location of your chosen area in a local, national and international context. Emphasise the features of the destination that give it a particular appeal to different types of visitor. Climate details Details of transport available to and from the UK Details of major attractions Any other important visitor – what is this place famous for?

2. A series of maps that go from the Global to the national to the local scale and that show the key features to be found in this area. These maps need to be clearly labelled and annotated to show sites and places of interest and comparision. It is NOT enough to just copy and paste in maps from other places.

Your text and writing should link the key components of the information together – the maps should be used to prove the point.

For example, obtain a map showing public transport routes and networks. Assess how accessible each of the following are, in terms of journey time, costs and availability of services: Airport Central Business District Major event venue Three leading visitor attractions Main tourist hotels Main sports stadiums etc

What the Chief Examiner in June 2006 said “ AO1 was leniently assessed in a lot of cases as candidates rarely demonstrated thorough knowledge, skills and understanding of the location of their chosen destinations. There was a lack of a series of maps, annotation on maps and full description in relation to the destination’s position in the world, locational maps which could show distribution of features, etc. Some aspects of AO1, eg. latitude/longitude in relation to climate/seasons could have been linked into AO2. Other aspects such as accessibility, eg. location of the airport, port, etc, on the map and ease of movement around island, city, etc. could have been annotated/described and linked to AO2.”